Chapter 1: The Dungeons Avatar
I returned to consciousness slowly, pain wracking my body with every breath. Around me I could see nothing, yet strangely I could still sense everything. Four solid walls, a floor and a ceiling. In the corner of the room I could sense a table and chair, atop the table was a book, old and large, more like a tome from medieval Europe. ‘Where is that again?’ I thought as the comparison flashed through my mind. Shaking my head I got up and walked towards the table. Opening the book a blinding light engulfed the room.
<
Out of the light came a calm, soothing, yet somewhat monotonous voice. Surprised and unsure of what to do, I looked around the room trying to discover the location of the speaker.
After determining that there was nothing in the room other than the book, I looked down at its pages once again, only to notice that a feathered quill and inkwell had appeared just above the book. The pages themselves now had a bunch of writing on them. Each page seemed to detail a bunch of different races of beings. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, Gnomes, Orcs, Dragons, Dragonewts, Haflings, Beastmen of various description, Vampires, Werewolves, Phantoms, Golems, Angels, Deamons, Demons and finally Demi’s. It was a character line up straight out of a game or fantasy novel. Each page had descriptions of each race, as well as a brief history. Slowly reading through them all I realised that picking anyone of the races could be a great boon or a great bane, so I decided to leave it alone for the moment. Pondering over the choices, I sat on the chair and flipped through to the back of the book. As I was flipping through I noticed that the last page at the back of the book held instructions;
“Within this world there are a few beneficial systems in place. Due to external influence you have been given direct access to some of these systems, as well as a few benefits.
To view the benefits and your current stats simply think or call out the word ‘Status’ with the intent to view your own status, due to soul linking to dungeon, additional bonuses applied for chosen race.
To view your abilities or skills, think or call out ‘skill list’, this command grants you access to see details about your skills and abilities, as well as any inherent talents that you may possess.
To view your magic, as well as affinities to elements and laws, and the spells that you have learned or can learn, simply call out or think ‘Magic List’
To purchase abilities, Skills, Magic and upgrades requires you to increase your level, due to soul linking to dungeon, level increases with the increase of dungeon level.
To view the details of the systems you have access to simply call out or think ‘System Admin’
Due to where your soul has landed you have been tied into a dungeon, ability to leave as well as ability to manage and build have been unlocked, use the command ‘Dungeon Management’ to gain access.”
I was dumbfounded, ‘Why is there a game system in this world,’ and as swiftly as I had that thought, ‘what is a game system again. . . ‘My mind has forgotten so much that I still have yet to recall the memories completely it seems. Following my thoughts I immediately tried out opening each of the menus.
<<<
<
<<<
<
<<<
<
<<<
<
<<<
<
<<10th day of the 5th month of the Year of Flaming Skies 899, time is 01:26am>>
‘Well that is not really helpful.’ I thought as I turned back to the front of the book. There was the race selection list. Almost all of the races existed in one of two fashions, pureblood, or half human, except for Demi, which seemed to allow for a large number of hybrid options. Looking through the list again, I was drawn towards the Demi race, a strange sense of always wanting to be a particular combination was stuck in the back of my mind, nagging at me wanting me to choose it.
‘Where is that idea from, I am sure I have never been that interested in fantasy novels or games much so why would that type of nagging exist.’ I thought to myself as I read through the different race pages again. Each race even had large numbers of sub-categories, Sub-races if you will.
For the Elves, it was five. The Humans had a dozen different ones, mainly kingdom based it seemed. The dwarves had three. The Hobbits only had two, while the Gnomes had only one. Orcs had a similar number to humans, similarly based on tribe. The Dragons had one for each element and law. Dragonewts resembled their ancestors the dragons and had eleven different tribes. Haflings were the cross of any race and a human meaning that there were as many different half’s as there were races. Beastmen had a large number of sub races as well, rabbits, tigers, dogs, cats, leopards, lizards, birds, any animal that you can think of and there is probably a match for it as a Beastman. Vampires and Werewolves are both singular races with only the purity of blood as a divide. The Phantoms are a strange race that exists in a mirror of the world haunting the shadows and dark places as there only access to the physical world. Golems was a generic term for all artificial lifeforms, from the summons of an earth mage, to the artifice of the eccentric Gnome, all artificial life falls into this category. Angels, Deamons and Demons fall into the Celestial over branching category but are their own distinctive races, angels serve gods, Daemons serve Devils and Demons are the offspring of the mixture of both races with each other and humans. The last category is larger, greater than even the combination and permutations of all the above, the Demis’ are a group of beings that mix not only the other races, but even monsters, can be the parents of a demi, if one partner is from the above races.
Using the system command again I was surprised at the display that appeared,
<<<
<
<<15th day of the 5th month of the Year of Flaming Skies 899, time is 15:29pm>>
It had taken me over five and a half days to read about each of the races, excluding the known demi human races and their monster counterparts. It seems that if a being is predominately a monster species then they don’t fall into the Demi category but into the Monster Category, even if they have similar or greater intellect than humans.
Thinking about things again after reading through, I decided to pick the Demi race. Why, you ask, because I am tied to this dungeon, meaning people will probably try to come here and kill me. So I will be a highly intelligent being, with lots of power, hopefully.
Picking up the quill on the table and circling Demi on the page, the quill vanished and the book shone out a brilliant light for the second time.
<
<
<
<<<
<
<<<
<
While the light was shining the voice returned and spouted a bunch of scary sounding stuff. Then as quickly as it started it, the blinding light vanished again. After my senses readjusted to the room I found a new book on the table as well as another quill. Opening the book I found out that it was the racial selection from the announcement. On the first page was a list of instructions.
“To select your racial compositions;
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
First, place a mark in the box next to the race.
Second, select your primary race/base body structure.
Third, select the racial features you would like to use for appearance.
Fourth, select the composition of racial strengths that you would like by percentage.
Fifth, assign status growth curve points to stats.
Sixth, assign skill growth, acquisition and mastery curve points to Skills.
WARNING:
Due to integration with a dungeon certain skills have been forcibly acquired and there growth determined.
Due to integration with a dungeon, Race is automatically designated as monster to all other Race’s
Due to integration with a dungeon, racial attribute determines dungeon type.
Due to external influence on system, composition of racial strengths may increase to excess of 250%
Due to external influence on system, base amplification of 10 to growth curve, acquisition curve, and mastery speed has been applied.
Due to external influence on system, base amplification of 250 to first level distribution points.
Due to external influence on system, you have now been classified as hostile to system, designated as target for hero and demon king.
Due to external influence on system, you have been set as a target for surveillance by administrators.
Due to external influence on system, administrators are unaware of your existence and are unable to use the system to find you, or monitor you.”
‘Well that is cheery information,’ I thought as I read through the warnings at the bottom of the instructions page. ‘At least it had some good stuff mixed in or I would think that I am being trolled. Wait what’s trolling again?’ I got this highly irritated feeling as I thought about the illusive concept in my mind.
Moving past my irate thoughts I moved on to the selection of my race-proper. The first thing I did was flip through to the index marked P, and put a tick next to the Phoenix Emperor, a majestic and magnificent creature of immortality and dominion over fire. Why this monster you might ask, easy cause even with only a fraction of its abilities I would gain Flame manipulation and “Immortality” which makes my life easier.
I flipped through to the section on the elves and tried to tick the High elf race, but apparently it was one of the restrictions. They seem to have high aptitudes for light and holy elements so I guess that those are out of the question as a general rule of thumb. So moving further through the Elves list I stumbled across something interesting, though the first book only listed 5 types of elves this list included several more, extinct, variants of the elves. Looking through them I found one I like and picked it. The Lunar Elf, a being even more revered in Elven society due to the rarity of its birth, the last one was born over 50 millennia ago. They were allowed as a racial choice and also had the Holy and Light attributes. I guess they were exempt from the restriction on the basis that they were really an undead being, but I don’t see the problem.
Next I flipped to the Dragon section, want to have ridiculous everything, pick dragons. Strength, speed, magic, perception, defence and intelligence. Dragons are overpowering in them all. However now it became a choice of which dragon race. Reading through them all I stumbled on an entry in a description that mentioned a being that was the strongest amongst the dragons, but was not listed in the applicable choices, so I circled it and ticked the circle as a joke. Then stared in dumbfounded amazement as the book generated a new page for my choice with the box already ticked.
<<< Emperor of the four laws and seven elements, a being that is thought to be a legend or myth, even amongst the oldest lived races of the world the dragons and gods, the Chaos Dragon is a being of omnipotence. A being with infinite possibilities and no weakness save for that of arrogance and ineptitude. This race has been reborn from an errant soul within the void and shall rise or fall based on their actions.>>>> ‘Well that joke went a little far but I guess that it works out for me.’ I was pondering over this system when I realized that I wasn’t finished just yet. Looking back at the book I decided to pick one final race. It was another being that was extinct and as such did not show up before. The race fell into the elemental category of monsters but honestly were actually a race that was subjugated and trained from birth solely for war. The Aether were a race of elementals who were in tune with all of the different elements equally, they however did not have bodies made from there elements but rather they had flesh and blood bodies. They had appearances similar to that of the high elves, but more chaotic in appearance. An aethers appearance would slowly change and take on their favoured element of use, this could result in absurd looks from bright red humanoids to light blue. These features mean that they faced heavy racial discrimination and they were eventually persecuted by the churches of other nations and driven to extinction. Having made my choice for the combinations it was now time to pick the base body form that I would take on. Looking at the different races I choose as well as the different features that I could choose to keep by bringing them onto the base body I decided to go with the Aether as my base body. That done the book gave off a small flash of light and turned into a three dimensional projection of what my body would look like. <<< The brief message that popped up was extremely useful, because I was just wondering what to do about the third step. Thinking about how I would like to look, an image slowly took shape within my mind. ‘Tallish at 2.1m, a jade like complexion, long hair in shades of red from light almost pinkish red, to deep auburns and crimson almost black reds worn in an elvish style set of braids, Fleck the hair with the feathers of the Phoenix,’ I immediately saw how each of the different parts would fit together, ‘pearlescent tinted translucent dragon scale over my skin on the neck, chest, back and extremities. Horns of the dragon curving back along the skull. Elf ears, elvish facial features, nails are retractable dragons claws. Adonis like physique. No maybe not more of a Shaolin monk or athletes physique would be better.’ While I was busy imagining how my body would look, the image in front of me slowly started to change and conform to what I was trying to picture. I had not even spoken aloud yet, showing that the desires of the mind really were observed. When I finally noticed it, the image that appeared was exactly what I wanted, in fact it was slightly better. ‘Creepy, if it can read my mind that well then maybe it knows more?’ I thought to myself as I stared at the image. Happy with everything I accepted the changes and the image slowly disappeared. Following this a bunch of menu screens appeared in front of me for the distribution of points as well as the distribution of racial strengths. ‘I have a total of 350% to split between the four choices, so I think that maybe I should go with some dominant ones and some slightly inferior ones splitting them into primary secondary and tertiary.’ Thinking to there I looked at the window for distribution of percentage and saw that the current levels were equal. ‘Okay so let’s change Aethers and Chaos Dragon to dominant with 95% each, which leaves 160% between the remaining two. Let’s set phoenix to 75% and Lunar Elf to 60%. So that leaves 25% to spread out. Use system random allocation with the current balance as a base line.’ I said to the emptiness around me, following which the 25% composition was distributed across my screen before disappearing. Having made my choices I was able to finish that quickly and close down the window which was at the front of the pile. Now came distribution of the growth correction on top of my external influence bonus. After several hours of deliberation and decision making I finished with all of my points distribution. With the way it was set I would have a good overall stat growth from levels, as well as ease of growth from actions, such as push ups, reading, negotiations, etc. My skill growth was also set to an extremely easy level, about one hundred times the speed of any of this worlds inhabitants, also the information provided by the system was increased, so that a basic this action feels right becomes, this action is right because of these reasons. With that all done all the windows closed except one. Dungeon Management. This window was probably the one I looked forward to doing the most, but I had side-lined it for the simple fact that it would take the longest amount of time and I wanted to really figure out exactly what this was all about. As I started to read through the window, the blinding light started again and I seemed to be slipping into unconsciousness. A voice sounded out around me. <<< <<< <<< <<< Blackness and deep rest greeted me at the end of the voices words.